


Caesura

by Wecanhaveallthree



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24345946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wecanhaveallthree/pseuds/Wecanhaveallthree
Summary: A brief piece inspired by the captive C'tan shown in the Silent King model teaser.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Caesura

Listen.

The voices that command this universe, those that speak the language of power, never allow themselves to be heard.

They are whispers on quantum foam. They are flickers in time with distant constellations. They emerge from the random rancour of a riot. What orders a flock of birds to take flight, all at once? What prompts the sudden hush of a crowded room? What delivers realisation in the quiet after a lie? White noise. Radio static. Messages. Ripples. The universe bowing before a greater power.

For a long time, that power was you.

You lived beneath the skin of stars. You fed. You grew. You roamed as you pleased. The span of years was nothing to you, nor were the eyeblink lives of other species. They could not harm you, nor interrupt your feasting. They were beneath your notice.

But you were not above theirs.

Do you remember the first tentative touching of minds? How the syllables of your speech haemorrhaged their eyes and ears? Your language undid them. They were enamoured with the sound of your voice, and you sang so proudly, so surely. Let the moth burn itself upon the candle of your glory. You took little notice.

Then the Deceiver came amongst you. So aptly named. He of darkness and deceit. He of broken oaths. He said: look below. See the ziggurats and idols they raise in your names. See the priest-kings and philosophers who proclaim you the height of wisdom and power.

Such gratitude in their hymns! So mightily do they strive to add chorus to your cadenza, to sing with but a sliver of your ability. They would give up their very souls.

And look: they, your loyal servants, these faithful creatures, have made for you a chariot. A body of exotic metal, so that you may experience all the pleasures and delights of the material universe. So that you may sup on the banquet of life itself, the richest of morsels - the very energy of being. And they ask for so little in return! Simple freedoms. Protection against another species. Trivial things.

Gladly, you accept. You assume the form they have lovingly fashioned, that of one of their long-lost pantheon. Yes. It is right that they venerate you. You are a god, are you not? So you speak. You command. You send out your new vassals, once frail creatures of flesh and bone, now forged anew in silver and steel.

Bite by bite, you become ensnared in the web of their lives.

You experience the joys of this new realm. The thrill of battle. The glutting of souls. The anger of betrayal. You crush the crude races that those desperate psionics created to stall you while they play at divinity themselves. Your appetites expand to include your brethren; soon your followers clash with worshippers of rival gods as often as they do with Aeldari or Krork. The galaxy is a maelstrom of bloodshed, and you revel in it.

One by one, your brothers fall - to each other, to the minions, to deception and betrayal. Your voice, your song, roars with wrath and hunger. You descend on the weakest and gorge yourself. You flee from the strongest and plot your revenge.

Beneath godly feet, the servant races are trampled. You do not notice. You do not care.

After a brutalising defeat, you flee, battered and torn. You howl your pain to the void. You swear revenge. You curse your body. Once, you would have spread your titan wings and soared to find another star. Now you must drag this swollen shell of necrodermis wherever you go, and you leave a trail any predator could scent.

With the coalition broken, you have only your worshippers to turn to. You are wounded, bleeding light, and they fight tirelessly to protect you, to hide you. Their knowledge of the sub-realms is vast, and you are not what once you were. There are places you may pause to rest, where they may tend your broken wings, without fear of discovery. You will be strong again. You remind yourself of this, over and over, until it becomes an unceasing mantra. A hum of self-affirmation.

You are a god. You must only speak for it to be so.

And they respond in kind. A delegation arrives. They have a ritual, they say, that will empower them. That will enable them to defeat the foes that hunt for them, that bind them, that would feed upon them. Their words are graceful, measured, humble. They warn you that it will hurt. But you are, after all, a god. What harm could a mortal possibly do to you? You laugh as you ascend the altar, thinking already of the triumphant future. You swell with assurance. You are great, mighty, strong.

But the knives. Oh, the knives. Black and stone, their wicked edges burn like the deepest, coldest void. They cut away your godly flesh, your stolen aspect, your bright and beautiful shell. They pin the very essence of you before it can flee, terrified, to the distant nebula. It is an eternity of reduction. You can feel yourself vanish, cut by terrible cut. You are peeled and pared. The butchery is methodical and complete.

When it is done, there is very little left of you.

You can barely see. You cannot form true thoughts. You have no sense of time. There is only pain, and loss and just enough awareness to know that you are trapped. Unable to die. Unable to exist. Your aetherial body is exposed for all to see, fragile and writhing and weak. Like a trophy, you are set between two stones and placed atop a dais. The flayed corpse of a god.

You scream. It is all you can do, now. You beg. You cry. The growing, gibbering madness only an ancient being can be afflicted by when robbed of their freedom.

Aeons pass. Millions of years. You fill them with your tortured voice.

Not once does your captor speak.

There is only the recursive, mocking echo of your insanity in this kingdom of silence.


End file.
